Chris Coughlin leans forward in his seat, his eyes glued to Mott’s silhouette outlined in the side window. Brothers in arms.

“Jesus, Mott,” I say. “What did the doctors say when they saw your leg?”

“Haskins is a smart cookie. Took me to this hometown doc in Baxter Falls, little town about twenty miles outside of nowhere. Made up some cock-and-bull story the guy believed. Then we moved to Oregon for a couple of years, so when the people there saw me, I was already a one-legged kid. That’s when he left her. Came back up here and got famous.”

“Who else knows this?”

“Me. You guys.”

“How come you never told?”

He shrugs. “Hell, I barley rememher it, don’t know if I really do. Rance is gone. Leg’s gone. Who do you tell? Got damn fast on crutches. My mother blackmailed Rance into puttin’ hard-earned drug money into a trust fund so I could get this space-age leg soon as I finished growing. No point telling anyone now.”

I start to ask why he’s telling us, but I know. It’s a gift.

“An’ you guys don’t tell nobody either, got it?”

“Jeez, Mott, don’t you want to get him?”

“Guys like Rance Haskins already been got,” Mott says. “Hell, he doesn’t care if he spends the rest of his life in prison or in Palm Springs. He’s the same miserable son of a bitch no matter where he is.”

“Maybe, but Jesus, Mott. He got your leg.”

Mott brings his leg up on the seat, raises the leg of his sweatpants. “Yeah, but look what he left me. This baby’s bionic.”

Simet and Icko are doing what they always do during these conversations, remaining invisible unless we invite them in. God, what must Coach be thinking? Here are these guys, brought into his sphere of influence under the guise of a swim team that can’t swim. For some of them, he and Icko are the only decent adults they’ve ever known. There’s nothing he can do about the past for any of them. And now the only thing he can do about the present is stand up for them against the rest of the Athletic Council, who want to rob them of their letter jackets. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. I felt tremendous relief today when Jackie Craig and Simon DeLong finished the hundred-yard backstroke in personal bests, because it meant everyone had safely lettered, that we’d accomplished our goal, or at least my goal. I know the whole thing is only symbolic, a gesture. But it’s a hell of a gesture, because it lets us stand up for ourselves in the language that is understood at this school. Part of me doesn’t want it to end, because it’s so much more than what I had in mind in the beginning, and I don’t know if what we got from it can ever be re-created.

CHAPTER 13

The monthly Athletic Council meeting is set for lunchtime of the Monday we return from the conference meet. I get a note from Simet between first and second periods to see him in his room before he goes in. “These guys must have stayed up late,” he says “They’re pushing hard to revote on our letter requirements. I told ’em I was bringing you with me.”

“Bet they loved that.”

“Everything’s relative. I threatened to bring the whole team. I think Andy Mott makes everyone nervous.”

“Mott is my personal hero.”

“Benson is bringing some representatives from the football team, and I guess Roundtree is bringing a couple of hoopsters. There is some common feeling that I misrepresented the truth.” He laughs.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I just want you there to have us represented. You may not have to say anything. Play it by ear, but whatever you do, don’t lose your temper and don’t get into it with Barbour. It could be a tight vote, and you don’t want to piss anyone off.”

I run into Carly coming out of Simet’s room and bring her up to speed. “This is too cool,” she says. “Janet Lindstrom is the girls’ sports rep to the council, and she’s gone. I’m first alternate. I don’t know how Janet would vote, but I’m in your pocket, if you play your cards right.” She kisses me on the cheek. God, I love her. She is so perfect for me, requires so little.

Simet and I walk into the council a few minutes late because of a last-minute strategy meeting, and the room falls silent, making me wonder if Benson and Roundtree had a last-minute strategy meeting of their own.

Benson is chairperson for the year, and as he opens the meeting, I realize if parliamentary rules are in play he can vote only in case of a tie, so between that and the addition of Carly, we may have been handed a two-vote swing. He dispatches with old business in about fifteen seconds, then calls for new.

Mike Barbour raises his hand. “I move to call for a review on the letter requirements for the swim team.”

Before anyone can respond, Carly says, “Call for discussion.”

There is agreement.

Barbour says, “The letter requirements were misrepresented to the council, I believe.”

That’s way more articulate than Barbour is. Somebody has been coaching him to imitate a human.

Simet knows how to play this game. “Misrepresented? You’re saying I deceived you?” He turns to Barbour. “That’s the gentleman’s way of saying ‘You callin’ me a liar?’”

That throws Barbour for a second. Even he isn’t in the business of calling a teacher a liar. “No, well, what I mean is, I don’t think the rest of us knew whether the requirements were hard enough to earn a letter.”

“So you basically made your decision without sufficient knowledge.” It isn’t a question.

“I think what Mike is trying to say,” Benson says, “is that we believed you were setting a standard for yourselves that would meet criteria that would set your team in an equal position with other sports teams.”

Simet and Benson lock eyes. Simet says, “I haven’t been a member of this council very long, but in almost every formal meeting I’ve attended elsewhere, the chairperson’s job is to run the meeting and let the other members debate, to avoid an appearance of bias.”

That pisses Benson off, and the jacked muscle in his jaw tells us so, but he’s cool and hands the gavel to Roundtree. I don’t think Benson knows how any formal meeting is run. He’s used to saying what he wants when he wants. It doesn’t matter which of them is chair, it still takes a vote away from the bad guys unless we’re in a tie.

Carly says, “I wasn’t here the day of the original vote, but it seems to me that if the council made a decision and the swimmers swam their entire season with that goal in mind, it would be unfair to change it now.”

Go, Carly!

Barbour says, “We didn’t know every kid on that team was gonna get a jacket.”

“Neither did I,” Simet says.

“But I think that may be the point,” Benson says. “It’s a brand-new sport here at Cutter, and every athlete lettered. What other sport in the school’s history has lettered every athlete in the program?”

“Actually,” Simet says, “the chess club lettered all its athletes in 1989 and again in ’93.” Now how in hell would Simet know that?

“The chess club!” Barbour blurts out. “That ain’t no athletic team.”

“It was then,” Simet says. “Before ’95 it was considered a sports team, and the members earned letters. In those two years, every athlete lettered. No one said a word.”

“Correction,” Roundtree says. “Someone did say a word, which is why the chess club is no longer considered an athletic team. Chess is a game, not a sport.”

“I won’t get into that argument with you, Coach. Don’t know whether I’d argue for or against chess as a sport. My point is, when it was considered one, everyone lettered. In context, there is precedent for all the athletes on a team lettering.” The council is quiet, probably digesting Simet’s words, but he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I don’t even think it’s a big deal, or has anything to do with the point of this issue. It’s just a fact.”